by Jo Bunt
Boom! Lightening flashed and thunder roared simultaneously. I involuntarily ducked as the room lit up like a lighthouse had suddenly shone into it before turning away. I didn’t know whether I should go out into the storm that was raging outside. There was a sudden gust of wind and I heard the sound of metal scraping on concrete and the tumbling of a heavy object on the road below. I went to look out of the window to get a better view of the scene outside when I suddenly felt unsteady. For a horrible moment I thought that I was going to faint; the room seemed to be shaking around me. I realised a second too late what was happening and the floor beneath me vanished into the chasm below. I screamed as the building swallowed me up, knocked me unconscious and turned my world black.
Chapter twenty-two
I opened my eyes but couldn’t move my head. It was completely dark and I couldn’t see a thing. Panic gripped me and I tried to scream. Was I blind? I knew I was trapped but apart from that, I had no idea what had happened. I tried to move my legs but they were weighed down. Worryingly I could feel no pain. I tried to call out but there was no breath in my body capable of making a sound. I just started thinking in my head over and over again, “Please God, help me. Help me Lord.”
I had to get back to Dom. I needed to tell him I loved him. I needed to touch his face and hear his voice. And I certainly was not going to die here without telling Mum how sorry I was for everything. The last conversations I’d had with both of them weren’t exactly arguments but they had been devoid of any warmth from my side.
There was a cool breeze on my face like someone lying next to me exhaling. Before I could puzzle over what that meant, a sudden flash of intense light burned in my eyes just like it always did following a nightmare. In relief that I wasn’t sightless, I instinctively snapped my eyes firmly shut. The memory of the luminescence danced in reds and greens on the back of my eyelids.
“She’s here! She’s here! Help me,” a man’s voice shouted.
I swayed like I was on a boat and then cool air rushed at me like a tidal wave.
“Can you hear me?”
I tried my best to nod.
“We need to move you, okay?”
This time I didn’t even bother to nod or try to make a sound. Someone was here to take care of me and that was all that mattered.
“Take it slowly, c’mon, try sitting up for me.”
“She okay?” a second voice came from somewhere, shouting over the rain.
“I think so. I can’t see any blood but...”
“You get her other arm. On three. One. Two. THREE.”
I felt myself being dragged to my feet but just as I was about to put my weight on my feet, I was hoisted in the air and carried into the rain.
“You’ll have to put her in the back.”
I could hear a car engine running somewhere.
“I’ll sit with her.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
I dozed off at that point. I didn’t care if I was safe or not, there was no way I could stay awake any longer. I was so tired. As I drifted off I could hear someone’s voice saying, “Do not sleep. DoNOTsleep.”
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I wasn’t dead. There had been a point where I wasn’t sure that I would ever see daylight again, so just waking up held a certain pleasure for me. I blinked open my eyes to see what else was new. I was in a hospital bed, no surprises there, with a drip in my arm connected to a half-full bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal stand. I wasn’t in any pain, so I was assuming that I was shot through with some pretty good painkillers.
At the foot of my bed was quite a crowd but without craning my neck I couldn’t tell who any of them were. They were definitely not speaking English though.
Shit! I thought as my situation started to dawn on me. Was I still on the Turkish side of the island? Was this a Turkish hospital? Was I about to get arrested?Crap. What now? I toyed with the idea of pretending to be asleep until I could be sure of my situation. I couldn’t quite piece together the last few hours. There were images in my head like pieces of a jigsaw but, try as I might, I couldn’t seem to slot them together. Stop panicking. Breath. Think clearly. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Leni?”
Shit! They know my name. Time to face the music.
I looked at the face of the woman who had just spoken my name. My vision blurred a little and then focused again. In front of me was that woman. What was her name? She was my landlady I think. Relief spread through my body.
“It’s Antheia. How are you feeling?”
Ah yes, Antheia. That was it. I smiled at her but it hurt my head. It felt like I had imbibed several bottles of cheap red wine.
“Shoo! Shoo! She needs rest.”
I watched as all but one of the others left the room. The young man who was left was familiar but I couldn’t place him. He was very good looking and had worry marks between his eyebrows.
“Are you in any pain?” he asked.
I started to shake my head but winced at the motion.
“Yes and no.” My voice didn’t sound like my own, it was rasping and quiet. “Who found me?”
“Stefanos, his father George, and Nick,” the kindly woman answered.
Stefanos. That’s his name. I was starting to remember.
“You found me. Thank you Stefanos.”
“Yes. Thank God.”
“How did you?”
“Find you?”
“Uh-huh.” I was learning that all communication was going to have to be verbal. It hurt too much to move my head.
“We found your bag by the fence. It had that map in it that you had shown me. Nick pulled some strings with his friends at the UN and when it got dark my father brought his truck and we went in to find you, using that map.”
“Nick? Do I know him?”
“You were meant to be meeting us outside the museum, remember? When you stood us up, we went to find you.”
Right. It still didn’t make much sense.
“How did you know that I was stuck in the building?”
“We didn’t. A girl flagged us down, pointed at the building and then ran away again.”
“Anna,” I whispered. “She must have been so scared.”
“Then we saw your light and we pulled you free.”
“Light?”
“Yes. A torch or something?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it was me. I remember seeing it too but it wasn’t me.”
Stefanos sighed and exchanged a glance with the plump, older woman. What was her name again?
“Leni,” started the older woman, “You need rest. I will bring food. We will fatten you up, and get you strong. Yes? Antheia will make it all right.” She leant in and smothered me with her bosom as she kissed my forehead.
“Wait! Where is Anna?” I croaked.
“Eh?”
“The girl, Stefanos.” I sighed at him. “Did you get her too?”
“No. She disappeared.”
“Is she home?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged.
“Antheia? Is she?” I demanded as firmly as I could manage.
“I do not know.”
“But she’s your daughter!” I gritted my teeth. I was getting impatient with their slow-wittedness.
They both looked at me in puzzlement. I had to make them understand.
“It was Anna that I saw in Varosha. She was the reason I went in, I followed her in there. I was worried about her, I was going to bring her back home. You’ve got to go back Stefanos, she’s all alone. She might be in danger, the buildings aren’t safe.”
“Tell me again. Who is she?” he asked softly, like he was talking to a distressed child.
“Stefanos!” I was getting exasperated. “It’s Antheia’s daughter, Anna.” I looked at Antheia. Surely she could understand what I was saying. She picked up my hand and leaned in close.
“My daughter’s name is Erato.”
“I’m
talking about yourother daughter.”
“I do not...” her eyes narrowed but she looked concerned.
“Yes! I’ve met her – at your house!”
“No.”
“Yes! Her name is Anna!”
Antheia looked at Stefanos and he frowned, shaking his head. Unperturbed, Antheia lowered her voice.
“Tell me what she look like.”
“I don’t know. She just looks like a girl. She’s about ten years old, maybe twelve? Brown eyes, hair in plaits, red ribbons. She’s usually wearing a blue and white dress, she doesn’t speak much English. I don’t know, she looks like a normal Greek girl.”
Antheia whispered something to Stefanos in Greek. Her eyes were wide with what? Fear? Amazement?
Stefanos looked at me but addressed Antheia.
“No. Absolutely not. She has banged her head, that is all.”
“Excuse me? I might have a headache but I DO know what I’m saying.” I was becoming more and more infuriated with them. There was a little girl out there on her own. I should have saved her instead of continuing on my selfish dead-end journey. “Sheis your daughter, isn’t she?” I asked Antheia, starting to doubt myself now.
“No.”
“Then who is she?” I asked in confusion. Perhaps I had banged my head after all.
“Anna is my niece. She died many years ago.”
Antheia and I looked at each other across the bed in silence. I looked deep into her warm brown eyes to see if she was joking. I wouldn’t put it past them to be making fun of me but there was something earnest in her eyes that suggested honesty. But, even so, I could not believe that I had seen a ghost. Concussion I could accept, but apparitions I could not.
“I... But I thought your niece was called...” I struggled to remember the name.
“Anemone. We called her Anna.”
No. This couldn’t be happening. Maybe Stefanos was right. I had taken a bang on the head. There had to be a plausible explanation for this. There always is.
“Please. I need to speak to Dom. Could you get me a telephone?” I asked, my voice shaking as much as my hands, which were knotted in the hard cotton sheets.
“What did she say?” asked Antheia, with eagerness in her eyes.
“I need to talk to Dom. Please. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Here. Use my mobile,” said Stefanos. He reached out his hand to Antheia, who took it reluctantly.
The phone took an age to connect, I kept checking the mobile’s display in case it had disconnected. Eventually I heard the phone ringing. I could see the phone clearly in my mind. It would be next to the television, Dom would be padding over to it bare-footed, he hated slippers.
“Come on baby. Please. Please.”
A click and my heart lifted for a moment, but instead of Dom’s smooth deep tone I heard my own tinny voice saying, “I’m sorry, we’re not available to take your call at the moment...”
I pressed the red button on the phone and disconnected the call.
“Shit!” I couldn’t remember his mobile number off the top of my head. Tears stung my eyes and I could feel the restrictive vice of panic sitting on my chest. He was listed on my mobile telephone under ‘Hubbie’, I never actually dialled the digits.
I cradled the mobile to my chest and thought for a moment. Mum. I could remember Mum’s mobile number. It hadn’t changed in over ten years.
No ringing at all this time, it went straight to voicemail. Mum’s voice came into my ears. “You’ve reached Pru. Please leave a message after the tone.”
I cried out in anguish.
“Mum?” My voice sounded too high in a bid to sound normal. “It’s me. I really need to talk to you. I’m okay but had a bit of an accident. I’ll call you again later. I think I’ll be out of hospital later today. I’m okay. Don’t worry, I just wanted to talk to you that’s all. I love you. Bye-bye.” I sighed as I hung up the phone.
I felt suddenly so alone and vulnerable. I imagined Dom and my mum getting on with their busy lives, probably not missing me at all. I wanted to be home with Dom’s arms around me. He would know what to do right now, he would help me make sense of it all.
I couldn’t comprehend anything that had happened today. I knew that Anna wasn’t a figment of my imagination. We’d had conversations. I’d held her hand. She wasnot a ghost. I could remember the touch of her small warm hand in mine and the lavender scent of her hair when I kissed the top of her head. There must be an explanation for it. But I strained to remember seeing her talk to anyone else. That first day I saw her in the kitchen, she stood away from everybody else. Whenever she came to my room, she was alone.
If what Stefanos said was true, she had led him to find me in the ruins of the old apartment. Could a ghost do that? It was hurting my head to think about it. I tried to sit up but every muscle in my body ached. I let out an involuntary cry as I felt the pain burn through my muscles.
Two men appeared at the bottom of my bed. They smiled pleasantly at me as I pulled the sheet up around me. The two men were polar opposites. One man, who was obviously a doctor, was unusually fair and stood at about six feet four inches and was uncomfortably scrawny. The other man, in normal clothes, was about a foot shorter, dark with a comfortably round belly.
“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.
“Good, thanks.”
“Sore?”
“A little.”
“You are lucky that you were not seriously injured. Those mopeds are lethal. They should ban tourists from riding them. But that is just my opinion. I am only a doctor.” There was no humour in his eyes even though the soft smile remained.
I looked at the other man who was almost imperceptibly shaking his head. I couldn’t tell what was in those twinkling brown eyes, but I had a strong sense that I wasn’t meant to enlighten the doctor as to the exact nature of my injuries.
“I will send a nurse in to change your dressings and then you will be free to go home. Stay off the bike. Fill in this form before you leave and give it to the nurse at the desk.” He dropped a clip-board onto the table at the end of the bed and nodded to the other man, said something in Greek and then left.
The short man smiled prodigiously at me. “We think it is better to not say where you were. So if anyone asks, you came off your moped. Okay?” Now he was smiling I recognised him as being Stefanos’s father, George.
I nodded. “Whatever you say. Where’s everyone gone?”
“Stefanos has taken his aunt home. She is... a little emotional.”
“Right. Yeah, she would be. Do you believe in ghosts, George?”
He sat on the side of my bed without answering and folded his arms. He stared off into the distance and at first I thought he hadn’t heard me. I studied his face. At this proximity I could see that he had hair sprouting from his ears and his nose. His stubble on his chin was a thick, short carpet of bristles. If there was anything this man was lacking it certainly wasn’t hair.
“Yes,” came the staccato response. I waited for him to continue. “I have not seen one. But you have seen Anemone. She has been dead for many years. I cannot say that you are wrong in what you say. I believe you.”
“I’m not sure I believe my own eyes, George.”
He smiled and rubbed my arm.
“We cannot know everything about the world, Writer Lady. Accept that there is much we cannot understand. Do not think so much! Waaa-ha-haaaa!”
“Okay. No more thinking. It’s a deal.” I smiled at George’s laughter. It was a nice sound. So wholesome. So alive.
A nurse bustled in then with a trolley on wheels.
“I will be outside if you need me. Okay?” George slid from the room.
The nurse worked in silence. I guess she didn’t speak English and I didn’t attempt to use any of my scant Greek vocabulary. I bit my lip as she recleaned my wounds and covered them with gauze and cotton wool wadding. It wasn’t an unbearable pain but I could have done without it.
Wh
en she was finished, I hobbled out of the hospital, doing my best to walk normally, and failing. I was relieved to see George leaning against the railings blowing cigarette smoke skyward in front of the hospital.
“You good?”
“Yep. Free to go.”
“I drive you home.”
I climbed into the passenger seat of George’s truck and closed my eyes to ward off any further conversations or admonishments. It turned out that we were quite some way from The Pleiades and, in spite of the uncomfortable seats and the non-existent suspension, I dozed most of the way back.
I opened my eyes as the engine cut off. Yaiyai was back in her usual spot but with the addition of a coffee in her brown bony hands today.
“Thanks for the lift, George,” I said through a yawn.
“S’okay.”
“And, more importantly, thanks for saving my life”
“It was nothing. I save lives every day. I am Superman. Waa-haaaa!”
I smiled at him but felt suddenly sad. I felt that I owed him an explanation. He had risked his life for me.
“You know it’s actually the second time in my life I’ve been buried in rubble in that building? That was where my mother found me, after the building was shelled in ‘74. She saved me and took me home with her to England.”
“Your father?”
“Dead. Well, missing. So I think it’s safe to assume that he’s dead.”
“If the body has not been found, he cannot be dead. Not in the law. There are women whose husbands went missing during the fighting who are still married to them. I know a man who keeps his son’s bike clean and shiny in the corner of his café for the day that he comes home. People offer him money but he says it is not for sale. It belongs to his son. It is difficult to move on if you have not buried your dead. After many years there are still people who hope that the people they love will come home.”
“That’s understandable, I guess.” We sat for a moment before I said. “You coming in?”
“No. The boss needs me in work today. She is very angry that I ran off with a writer lady yesterday! She had no one to hit with saucepan. Waa-haaa-haaa-ha!”
“Thanks for everything George. Really, I mean it.”
